


it's getting dark a little too early

by Currentlyonfire



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Bad End AU, Gen, Grief/Mourning, This One's a Bummer Y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 01:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14249823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Currentlyonfire/pseuds/Currentlyonfire
Summary: A mission goes very wrong. The Director handles it.





	it's getting dark a little too early

Taako answers her questions, cold and flippant, twisting the Umbrastaff in his hands, until he announces that he’s “fuckin’ done here,” snatches up the money, and stalks out of Lucretia’s office without being dismissed. She lets him go. She swallows down the grief. There’s work to be done. Relics must be disposed of quickly to eliminate the threat of enthrallment. A full report of the mission debriefing must be filed. Dossiers for the voidfish must be thorough, must have careful edits, must include crucial redundancies, something she can’t just delegate to the rank and file bureau employee. She gives the guards their orders. She sits down and reaches for a pen, takes a minute to steady her hand, then begins to write.

 

It takes nearly a week to get everything in order.

  


 

Taako doesn’t come to the Rites of Remembrance. She speaks with Killian. No one has seen him in several days, and there was no answer when they tried knocking on the door, even when they brought Angus. (Angus is inconsolable, Noelle and Carey are both sitting with him off to side.)

 

The ceremony concludes, and people mill around for a couple hours telling stories, leaning on each other. Killian wishes Lucretia a good night and carries Angus back to his room. Avi is drunk and miserable. Lucretia tells him to pack it in and to drink a full glass of water before he gets into bed. Fisher floats despondently, listing a little bit to one side. Eventually everyone files out. The catering crew clears the tables and stacks the chairs. Once everything is set to order Lucretia takes a deep breath and makes her way down the reclaimers’ suite.

 

  


Lucretia knocks. “Taako?” she calls.

 

There’s no response.

 

She pulls out her Director’s Key, dispels the honestly embarrassing ward he’s put on the door, and strides in.

 

Taako is curled up on the couch, back to the door. There are spell components and tissues and bottles of nail polish scattered everywhere. He doesn’t sit up or look at her.

 

“I already buried them, homie,” he says, voice raspy. “The whole mind erase deal? Your whole weird fish thing? That’s on you. Taako’s done here.” He’s trying for dismissive, bored. She wonders if he thinks it's convincing.

 

Her boot klinks against an empty cider bottle and sets it rolling.

 

It's not convincing. Lucretia knows Taako. She knows him perhaps better than he does, because she’s privy to so much he’s forgotten (and _there_ : there’s the old guilt). She knows Taako laughing with Lup and Barry late at night. She knows him trapped with her under the rubble as the shadows descend and agreeing, voice soft and oddly gentle, that the others absolutely got to the ship, for sure. She knows him whipping up buttercream for a monstrosity of a birthday cake, “I mean it’s gotta be perfect, it’s not every year we’re gonna turn 204, am I right?” (and the joke of everyone turning the same age every cycle had stopped being funny probably 30 or so ago, but levity was getting hard to come by, so she had smiled and he’d let her lick the spoon). Lucretia does not have to imagine Taako burying loved ones; she’s watched him do it. She’s helped him do it.

 

“Have you eaten?” she asks.

 

“Not hungry, m’dude,” he says, which was not the goddamn question.

  


 

Lucretia goes through the kitchen and doesn’t find much, but there’s eggs and chiles and cheese, so she makes two heaping plates worth of what they used to call Lup’s Zesty Scramble. She swipes away a pile of colorful strings and ...teeth to place one on the coffee table in front of Taako.

 

He finally sits up, swiping lank hair out of his face, and stares blankly at the plate for a long time. “I had an aunt who used to make this,” he says, finally.

 

“I, _well_ , I learned the recipe from some elves I used to travel with,” she says. (She has a full three journals of recipes, alternating at random between Taako’s messy scrawl and Lup’s big swooping flourishes.)

 

He takes a bite and chews thoughtfully. “Well it’s not great,” he says, “but good try or whatever.”

 

Lucretia pulls up a chair (and carefully does not think about think about the lovely carving along the back.) She takes a bite as well and wonders if Lup did really learn the recipe from their aunt, or if Taako’s mind is reaching for the source of an old comfort and settling on the nearest plausible relation. (And then: there’s the old grief for Lup, and the old guilt, and the new grief for--)

 

Suddenly Lucretia’s crying.

 

Suddenly she is sobbing in front of an old dear friend, a brother, who barely knows her, and that’s as much her fault as-- she can’t do this-- he doesn’t _remember_. She’s his employer, and this is inappropriate. This is--

 

Taako reaches down under the coffee table and shoves a wad of tissues at her. “Okay”, he says, “first off, waterproof mascara for funerals, come the fuck on.”

  
She takes it and dabs at her eyes, and her brother awkwardly, hesitantly, leans forward and puts a hand on her free arm. “I- Dire- Lucretia _listen_ ,” he says, voice wavering and oddly gentle, “Those _dipshits_ wouldn’t want to see you crying like this,” and she barks out a laugh and then leans into his shoulder, and sobs.

**Author's Note:**

> My excitement about season 2 has inspired me to tidy up some half-finished TAZ fics
> 
> Title is from The Eels' perennial downer Last Stop: This Town


End file.
